


Arrival and Departure

by Foegerfeax



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 18:17:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foegerfeax/pseuds/Foegerfeax
Summary: After being rescued, Kite spends some time on Whale Island convalescing.





	Arrival and Departure

**Author's Note:**

> It took me a long time to finish the chimera ant arc. I started writing this because I didn't know what happened and I needed Kite to be ok.
> 
> At least a little bit ok.

It wasn’t the first few days after Kite was dropped off on Whale Island that were the worst; it was the days after that.  
  
When he arrived he was unconscious. So Mito washed him, and tended to the old wounds and infections that needed attention, and struggled with his hair for awhile before giving up and cutting off the parts - the matted, filthy parts - that she couldn’t untangle. Barely shoulder-length, but washed thoroughly, she was surprised to see it was silvery white. No one would have guessed from its appearance when he arrived.  
  
As she scoured the grime from his body, almost in tears from the frustration of trying to balance washing him adequately with not irritating the wounds, she gathered what information she could. Studied him, as she scraped dirt from ribs she could count. There were old scars; some white, some shiny pink, some little more than raised patches of skin detectable only by touch. So he had not had a soft life, but he had survived much. A Hunter, most likely. One who had undergone something very bad, very recently, because there were also the new scars - angry, barely healed, long enough that they looked like machete wounds. His delicate jawline - no, you couldn’t tell anything about a person from their jawline. But the faint wrinkles around his eyes, the shadows there, contrasted with the smoothness (damage aside) of the rest of his face, made her think he was - either older or younger than he seemed. Again, a sufferer and a survivor. His rail-thin, emaciated appearance was alarming, but the sinewy strength under it, and the length of his limbs - the _annoying_ length, as they didn’t quite fit in the bath and somehow ended up sticking out in the most inconvenient ways - suggested that he had always been thin, willowy even. So if he was a fighter, he didn’t rely on brute strength. And then there were the festering scrapes, the fever, the way his face twitched when he came close to consciousness. There, she stopped herself from speculating. She didn’t want to know about the reason for his state, a state that seemed like it could only be the result of imprisonment and torture. Better to focus on the practical. If she had wanted to know the details, she should have pressed Gon harder before he left again.  
  
Her least favorite part: the thick red scar that went - and she checked - all the way around Kite’s neck, like someone had tried to garrote him and come close to succeeding.  
  
She kept him clean and after two days the fever went down and his swollen right eye stopped leaking mucus. He looked very peaceful lying there, hair gleaming where the sunlight caught it, mouth slightly parted. Like an angel, Mito found herself thinking in a fond moment before she shook her head and went back to putting ointment on one of the abrasions on his arm. She was always too quick to grow attached to the things she took care of. He wasn’t a _doll_. Gon didn’t respect _dolls_. Whoever Kite was - and Mito looked forward to meeting him when he awoke - he deserved better than to be admired in his weakness.  
  
She wouldn’t have thought that things could get worse, because when Gon had asked if she could take care of a friend for awhile, she had imagined he would be sick, or injured, not -  
  
He slept, and slept, and when Mito slept she had nightmares about what could have happened to put him in this state.  
  
***  
  
The days after he woke up were worse.  
  
They were worse because he wouldn’t let her touch him.  
  
She might have, maybe, because he didn’t really fight back - just curled in upon himself and huddled away from her in the corner of the bed and flinched violently when her hands moved towards him at all, teeth bared in an animal grimace. She struggled between wanting to gain his trust and needing to keep him _clean_, dammit. But something in her - the loving part, or the cowardly part - eventually determined not to force him. There was something deeply unsettling about the way his gaze seemed both present and not present, focused, but always past her shoulder or into a part of the room where there was nothing to see. She brought him food and sat for awhile, talking softly, and he didn’t move once; his eyes didn’t falter from their hazy focus on a spot just beyond the wall, and he didn’t untangle his limbs from their inverted, defensive pose. It would have been uncomfortably reminiscent of a dead bug, Mito thought, if only he didn’t look so terribly, fearfully alive. She wondered if he could hear or understand her, and, if he could, if he would remember what she said later. Just in case, she stuck to topics like what she was doing that day, and the weather, and other idle memories or stories that crossed her mind. Nothing too private. She tried talking about Gon, as someone they both cared about, but at the mention of the name Kite seemed both to perk up and draw into himself more violently, like he couldn’t decide if the name invoked affection or fear.  
  
She left the food, like Kite was a dog, and tried not to hate herself for it. Working in the kitchen and outside, it was like she could feel his presence in the upper room, dark and stinking and desperately in need of something he didn’t know how to accept.  
  
He pissed in the bed and she couldn’t get near him again for two days and his eye closed up again, infection resurging with a vengeance. When the fever came back he finally fell into a deep enough delirious rest that she rolled up her sleeves and marched in - with a clothespin on her nose - and dragged him out to a proper bath, scrubbing the grime for a second time from every inch of his body. She took all of the bedclothes and washed them and set the mattress out in the sun to sterilize.  
  
Grandma watched her critically as she wiped the sweat from her brow. “You should just leave him in the bathtub, Mito,” she said. “This is getting ridiculous.”  
  
Leave him in the bath, like locking a puppy in the garage because it isn’t housetrained. Mito shook her head. He was a friend of Ging’s, of Gon’s; he was a _person_, and it made her blood boil to see what the world might reduce a person to. She shook her head again, more firmly, as she remade his bed with a spare mattress that the neighbor had dropped off in his cart with an indulgent shake of his head.  
  
Her ministrations and relentless pursuit of hygiene brought Kite’s fever down after another day, and one afternoon when she was mixing some medicine by his bedside she looked up to see that his eyes were open. Not trained on her, just through the space beside her, but somehow she could read more lucidity in the gaze than previously. He was awake. He was awake, and not throwing himself away from her in terror. Her heart warmed.  
  
“Hello, Kite,” she said. “How are you feeling?” Dared to expect an answer, this time.  
  
Eyes avoiding her face, his lips slowly parted. And he whispered, voice hoarse from disuse and so quiet it was barely audible: “Why aren’t you hurting me?”  
  
As though it were surprising that anyone would do anything else. She felt anger on his behalf rise in her, but pushed it down again. She couldn’t seem angry with _him_. “Because I don’t want to hurt you, and you don’t deserve to be hurt,” she said brusquely as she pummeled the herbs. “Whoever did this to you you was wrong. But you’re safe now.”  
  
He didn’t seem to react, except that his eyes flicked from one side of her to the other without making contact in the middle, without seeing her face. His gaze focused vaguely on the light of the window, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed.  
  
“I promise I won’t hurt you, Kite,” Mito said lightly. “Okay?”  
  
He didn’t respond. When she began to bring the medicine towards him he flinched violently and the calmness of his gaze dissipated, being replaced by the familiar animal fear. She put it down on the bedside table.  
  
“If you drink this, it will help you feel better.”  
  
His head turned jerkily away from it.  
  
With a sigh she left him. But that evening when she returned, it was gone. He didn’t eat in front of her, but he ate what he was given. Aside from the bits that ended up in his hair.  
  
***  
  
Cleaning him remained a struggle. He didn’t sleep deeply enough for her to get anything done without him knowing, and when he knew what she was trying to do he would interfere.  
  
Even though she tried to calmly explain that not washing infected scrapes was a bad idea, every time she moved towards him he would jolt and futilely try to push himself deeper into the corner, wild eyes pointing to the side as though he were afraid of her displaced soul.  
  
“Kite - Kite, I’m trying to help_-”_  
  
A spasm as he kicked, trying to get as far away from her as possible.  
  
“I need to clean you-”  
  
Another spasm, limbs jerking, eyes wide and unfocused.  
  
She let out a sound of frustration. “Just stay _still_ and let me help you!” she said at last.

And he froze.  
  
Surprised but unwilling to waste his stillness, she moved a little closer and he flinched but did not shrink away. She gently took his arm and he flinched but did not retract it. He let her dress his wounds and wipe him down, a picture of unexpected docility, one that should have reassured Mito. But beneath her fingers she could feel his skin, clammy and trembling, and his pulse fluttering, fluttering like it wanted to fly away, and still he did not move.  
  
So she learned by accident that if she gave an order, he would obey it. She swore to phrase all future demands as requests, and locked herself in the bathroom and _sobbed_.  
  
Then she returned. He was curled in a fetal position on the bed, back facing her. All scars.  
  
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she said, feeling very weak. “I didn’t want to force you to let me touch you. I’m just trying to make sure you don’t get sicker. But I’m sorry.”  
  
Silence. She wasn’t surprised.  
  
***  
  
Slowly, miraculously, he got used to her presence. He would sit on the edge of the bed closer to her instead of wedged in the corner; knees drawn to his chest, but not too tightly; eyes wary, but calm. He still didn’t look her in the eye directly, but sometimes in her peripheral vision she caught him studying her. He let him clean her if she moved slowly. Sometimes he pushed his hair out of his face.  
  
He spoke, too, mostly in monosyllable, a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the questions she would ask, about his comfort and how she could help him. He even thanked her, albeit in a near-inaudible mumble, when she brought food. More complex questions were usually ignored, but she held out hope that with a little patience he would open up more.  
  
“Kite,” she asked one morning, mending some clothes while he stared out the window, “Is there a particular kind of food you like? I’m going into town after lunch, so you can choose what we have for dinner. I’ll pick up the supplies.”  
  
His head turned a little so she could see his face in profile, a dark silhouette against the sunlight. He mumbled something.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“Cooked,” he said. “I like cooked food.”  
  
Pushing down the creeping horror that rose at that answer, Mito forced a smile. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll cook something. Do you have any preference of what?”  
  
His mouth opened and closed again. He might have been ignoring the question, but he also might have been thinking. So Mito waited.  
  
At last he made an awkward sound in his throat. “Um. I don’t know.”  
  
Yet it was the longest normal thing he had said yet. Mito smiled at him. “That’s fine. If you think of anything, let me know.”  
  
He gave a sort of nod.  
  
Mito didn’t ask any more questions. She didn’t want to push her luck.  
  
For dinner she cooked some of Gon’s favorite dishes. When she brought the food to Kite, she told him, and he smiled vaguely down at the plate. Still he set it aside for after she left him alone, but when she came back to tend to him before going to sleep, he was sitting cross-legged on the bed. He held out his hand, a tentative gesture towards the washcloth and ointment.  
  
“Can I do it?” His voice was husky, eyes downturned.  
  
Mito hesitated. “Do you mind if I watch? I need to make sure you’re doing it right.”  
  
He shook his head once, acquiescing. Somehow it struck Mito as funny that he was one of the rare people who would answer ‘do you mind’ with the grammatically correct ‘no.’ She handed over the items.  
  
Methodically Kite set them out on the bed and pulled off his loose button-down shirt. (It swam on him, another gift from the skeptical but good-hearted neighbor.) Carefully following the order and process of how Mito had been dressing his abrasions, he washed himself and administered the medicine where necessary.  
  
Mito watched, a little impatient at the fact that she could have gotten the job done so much more quickly, but still pleased at his progress. When he twisted around to take care of his back and shoulder blades, his mouth tightened imperceptibly. But he gave no other outward sign of discomfort, though the contortion must have hurt him greatly, wounded as he was. He finished the job efficiently and closed the container of ointment.  
  
“Acceptable?” he asked, and there might have been an edge of humor to his voice. He knew he had done a good job.  
  
“That was just fine,” Mito replied, genuinely impressed. “In fact, it was very good. Do you have medic training?”  
  
He frowned. “I’ve-” It was a tense whisper. “Just basics. I’ve worked. With animals.”  
  
Detecting the shift in his tone, Mito decided not to press. “That’s nice,” she said instead, gathering everything up. “It’s good to help animals.”  
  
He gave a jerky, hesitant nod, like he wasn’t so sure. He put his shirt back on and fastened the buttons with trembling fingers. At some point his infected eye had started crying.  
  
In the doorway Mito paused. “Goodnight, Kite.” She slipped through and let the door swing shut.  
  
And right before it latched, a whisper: “Goodnight, Mito-san.”  
  
The last person who had said that to her, of course, was Gon. For a minute she stood outside the door, eyes watery.  
  
***  
  
The next morning when she brought Kite breakfast, her warning knock on the door was answered, for the first time, with a “Come in.”  
  
Pushing the door open, she was greeted by the sight of the windows already open, pouring early sunshine onto Kite who was sitting on the floor and stretching. He stopped as she entered.  
  
“Good morning!” she said, maybe too happily. Seeing him _doing_ something without having been directed was glorious.  
  
“Morning,” he said, lips barely moving.  
  
“I have your breakfast,” she said, holding up the bowl.  
  
“...Thanks very much.”  
  
To anyone else the exchange would have seemed like Kite was being dismissive or even condescending, but compared to his previous taciturnity he was being downright bubbly and Mito couldn’t help thinking proudly that she was doing something right, if he was willing to speak so much more than before.  
  
She set the porridge down on the bedside table. “Well, enjoy. Call me if you need anything.”  
  
He braced a hand on the ground and stood up. And up. And up.  
  
Mito blinked up at him, and then she almost started laughing. She knew his legs were long, yes, but when he was standing - the full impact of their length was dizzying. He towered over her. But for all that he wasn’t hugely imposing - he wouldn’t make eye contact. And he had roughly the proportions of a maypole. Mito smiled sadly at the quizzical look that flitted across his face at her response. He took a step back, like the unexpectedness of her reaction, despite its positivity, had set off alarm bells.  
  
“Sorry, Kite-” she said quickly. “You’re so tall. You surprised me. That’s all.”  
  
He was silent for a long moment. Then, “What are you doing today?” he asked, very quietly. His voice was still - always - hoarse.  
  
“Me?” she asked in surprise. “I was going to do some organizing and then clean up from breakfast. Then I wanted to check the paneling on the house.” Parts of it had been wearing down under the sea breeze, and it was high time she examined it properly to see if repairs were in order.  
  
Kite nodded sagely, like she had said something very wise. When he spoke again there was a strained quality to his quiet voice. “Can - when I finish breakfast. Can I be there? I won’t - disobey.”  
  
She frowned in confusion and he shook his head, trying to find the right words. “I don’t want - I won’t _do_ anything. I just - don’t want to be alone.”  
  
Mito squeezed her eyes shut, smoothing down her apron. So when she had been intending to allow him his space, she had been torturing him. “Of course,” she said heavily. “Of course, Kite. You’re free to move around the house. I’d be happy to have your company while I work.”  
  
The flash of relief on his face was almost painful.  
  
She left him to his breakfast - for it still seemed that he did prefer to eat alone - and went down the stairs. By the time she had filled the sink with hot soapy water, she felt a curious sensation on the back of her neck. Turning, she jumped in shock and put a hand to her heart. “Kite!”  
  
He stood in the shadows of the doorway, holding himself there like a specter that would fade if it stepped into the brilliance afforded by the kitchen windows. Mito scowled.  
  
“Don’t - that scared me,” she scolded, stopping the order at the last second. “In the future could you greet me, so I know you’re there?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.  
  
“That’s alright.” She sighed. “No harm done.” She rolled up her sleeves and plunged them into the water. Kite materialized beside her, setting down his bowl silently. She bit her lip, refraining from criticizing him a second time for the same thing so soon. He would learn. It was better for her to get a little scare - a few little scares - than for him to feel uncertain of his welcome. She turned to the dishes.  
  
Kite _lurked_, standing a few paces behind her like he didn’t know what he was doing there. He moved around the kitchen a little, surprising her every time he did so, because he moved so soundlessly. Eventually he gravitated to the set of hooks by the door and stood there studying their contents. After a few minutes he slowly reached up, seeming more random than purposeful, towards Mito’s straw hat, the hat she wore to keep from getting sunburned when she had to weed the garden or make the long trek into town on particularly sunny days. He took it down and ran his fingers absently over the weave of the brim, motions halfway between the attentive study of an expert and the absentminded quality of a person trying to determine if they are dreaming, but still too deep in the dream to be able to put effort into it. His face was expressionless but he was, without a doubt, really looking at the hat. Which was a good thing. That he could focus on objects in the real world, rather than just shadows of old fear.  
  
She glanced over with a smile. “Do you like that?” she asked.  
  
He started, looked at her guiltily.  
  
“You can put it on if you want to, Kite.”  
  
He put it on and sat there quietly, watching the cupboard above her shoulder until she finished with the dishes. When she took off her apron and turned to go he stood up and followed her, going to return the hat to the hook.  
  
“You can keep wearing it if you want to.”  
  
Hesitating, he turned it around in his hands, not looking at it.  
  
“Why don’t you just hold onto it?” she supplied at last. “I don’t mind.”  
  
His grip on it tightened, and he nodded once.  
  
They went outside, and Kite sat down in the grass as Mito began to examine the house, scraping critically at the surface to see how serious the erosion was. Every now and again she paused to record the measurements and status in a notebook. The next time she looked up from her scribbling, Kite had put the hat back on.  
  
The morning burned on to afternoon and at last Mito stepped back from the wall, stowing her book and pencil in a pocket. “All done,” she announced, turning only to see that Kite was standing a little way off, one hand on the hat to keep it on as he tilted his head back to look at the sky. Or rather, to look at a bird.  
  
Mito approached him, shading her own eyes from the sun as she watched the bird flitting through the air. “How are you doing?” she called.  
  
Kite glanced in her direction and almost smiled. Then he stretched out a finger and the bird fluttered around it uncertainly for a moment before alighting. Impressed, Mito raised her eyebrows in delight.  
  
“_Passer insularis_,” Kite recited. “The ait sparrow. They thrive on islands with moderate climates. But I’ve never seen this variety - the yellow markings on the wings. I didn’t notice any the last time I was here....” his voice petered out, as though surprised at itself for speaking so long.  
  
“You’ve been to Whale Island before?” Mito asked.  
  
A nod. Staring at the sparrow, he looked like he didn’t want to elaborate, but then he forced himself. “I was looking for Ging-san.”  
  
“Oh.” So Ging hid, then, from his friends as well as his family. Her lips pursed.  
  
Kite turned his back to her, relaxing his arms to his sides, and the bird flew away. The breeze picked up, Kite’s hand flying up to keep the straw hat on, and as his hair danced Mito wondered what it would have looked like, clean and tidy, when it was longer. No matter; hair could re-grow.  
  
That night he ate with her and Grandma in the dining room, carefully taking very small bites like it mattered to him, very much, that they should not find out how near the memory of starvation was to him.  
  
***  
  
The next day he didn’t get out of bed or speak, just lay there despondent, refusing to make eye contact. But he let her clean him, exhibiting a limp sort of trust.  
  
Before leaving for the night, Mito paused to study him. She swallowed a lump in her throat. “You’re scaring me,” she said. “Did I push you too hard yesterday?”  
  
For a long moment Kite didn’t react. Then he rolled over, and made brief eye contact for the first time, just a flicker and away. “Tired,” he said. “Sorry.”  
  
Relief washed over her. “That’s fine. That’s fine. You have nothing to apologize for. Do you want anything before bed?”  
  
“...No. Thank you, Mito-san.”  
  
When he slept deeply, he dreamed, and whimpered and thrashed, and when Mito came in to shake him awake and calm him down he sometimes almost hit her.  
  
***  
  
A few days later he came downstairs in the morning before she went up to get him, which might have indicated insomnia (bad) or a new zest for life (good). He looked weary, but not necessarily tired, like he had gotten used to exhaustion.  
  
“Good morning,” Mito said. “Did you sleep alright?”  
  
Kite gave a noncommittal shrug and then a cursory nod that Mito suspected was disingenuous. He sat down, fingers folding together precisely in his lap. They were long and white and breakable-looking, like the airy bones of a bird.  
  
After a brief second of worrying that too much caffeine would exacerbate his apparent difficulty sleeping, Mito forced herself to treat him like a guest rather than an inmate. “There’s tea and coffee,” she said, rather than simply presenting him with a mug of green or herbal tea as she had been doing when she delivered his breakfast.  
  
“Oh.” He stared at the table for a minute, as though he could read his preference in the grain of the wood. “Coffee?”  
  
Voiced as a question, Mito wasn’t sure if he was asking to have some, or merely clarifying the options. “I can put a coffee pot on for you if you want,” she said.  
  
After a beat, he nodded stiffly.  
  
Mito set the pot on and returned to her preparations for breakfast. The silence hung heavy in the early morning air, a palpable thing amid the scent of cooking oatmeal. The coffee finished. She poured him a cup and placed the sugar bowl and cream before him.  
  
With a little sigh - maybe of contentment - Kite poured some cream into his cup and brought it up to his nose, inhaling experimentally. Expressionless, he took a sip. He put the cup down and rubbed at his bad eye.  
  
Mito stood on tiptoe to grab two bowls from the cabinet and filled them with oatmeal, throwing berries on top. She carried them both over, placing the larger bowl before Kite, and sat herself down beside him. He stiffened a little at the proximity, but inclined his head in mute gratitude for the food. He drank some more coffee.  
  
After taking a careful bite of oatmeal and swallowing it, he turned his head just slightly towards Mito. His eyes raised from the floor to her knees, as though that were the closest he could safely get to meeting her gaze while they conversed. “You’ve been - very nice to me,” he said in a stilted tone.  
  
Spoonful halfway to her mouth, Mito paused, unsure of what he intended by that and what an appropriate response would be. “Um. You’re welcome?”  
  
He raised his cup to his lips once more, and his face stayed placid but his hand was shaking, making the surface of the liquid tremble. Mito felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She wanted to reach out and steady him, but didn’t want to offend.  
  
“If-” Kite’s throat caught and he coughed a little before finishing in a tiny whisper: “If it’s too much trouble, I’m ready to leave. I’m all better now.”  
  
Comically, horribly, she momentarily pictured Kite in the condition he had arrived in, dragging himself along the kitchen floor, trailing blood, saying, “Thanks for having me, I’m fine now and I’d like to leave.”  
  
She stared into her oatmeal for a second to steady herself before speaking. “I don’t think that’s correct,” she said lightly. “I really think you should stick around until you’re feeling even stronger.”  
  
He looked away from her knees, eyelashes fluttering in surprise. “Oh,” he said. “Oh. Okay. If you think so.”  
  
“I do,” Mito said, putting the oatmeal in her mouth at last.  
  
Kite nodded in a manner that made him seem eager to please, as though he felt embarrassed for having brought up the subject of leaving in the first place. With precision he measured out another spoonful of oatmeal with exactly two berries on top and put it in his mouth and pulled the spoon out again, resting it on the side of his bowl as he chewed and swallowed in a way that made it look like he was trying not to make it look like he needed to chew or swallow the food he ingested, like the unsightly mammalian biological process of acquiring nutrition was too messy and disgusting for Mito’s eyes, and he, _he_ had a different way of staying alive that was mathematical and pure and didn’t require one’s mouth or throat to move. Or maybe he thought making any noise or visible motion would be rudely obtrusive.  
  
Or maybe she was reading too much into things. Embarrassed, Mito turned to her own breakfast. She finished long before Kite managed to scrape every last soft piece of oat and berry seed out of his bowl, picking them up on his spoon one at a time, and then still he sat for awhile finishing his coffee, which must have already gone cold.  
  
***  
  
It took Kite a while to get used to interactions with Grandma, because while he wasn’t afraid of her, per se, her forcefully, authentically cheerful demeanor was slightly overwhelming. His words seemed to dry up around her, and he responded to her ‘tell me about yourself’ questions with silence and downturned eyes. It would have seemed like he didn’t hear her at all, except that a slight flush of shame rose on his cheeks.  
  
“Well, at least he doesn’t talk too much,” Grandma said when another one of her queries over dinner went ignored. “Lord knows most men have trouble shutting up.”  
  
Kite’s face burned.  
  
“He’s just shy,” Mito defended. “Stop pestering him with questions and maybe he’ll want to talk to you.”  
  
“Does he talk to _you_?” Grandma countered.  
  
_Yes_, Mito thought, but she hadn’t questioned him at all about his past or what happened to him. “I think,” she said tiredly, “That we should stop talking about our guest as if he weren’t present.”  
  
“Of course,” Grandma said. “How rude of us!” She turned to Kite. “So, Kite, Mito said you’re a friend of Ging’s. How did you meet?”  
  
“Grandma-” Mito said in exasperation.  
  
Kite cleared his throat. “No, uh, it’s okay. He. Um. He showed up in my house.” Beneath the table, his trembling hands gripped his knees tightly, knuckles white.  
  
“He broke in?!” Mito asked, aghast.  
  
“Ah - no. I was... living in a sewer.” His mouth twitched, like he regretted saying anything. He didn’t go on.  
  
Living in a sewer. Mito wanted to hit something.  
  
“Well,” Grandma said, breaking the silence, a twinkle in her eye. “Ging was always a strange boy, so I’m not surprised the two of you hit it off.”  
  
Mito’s eyes widened, ready to snap at Grandma for the veiled insult, but Kite let out a sharp sound of laughter. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”  
  
Mito wasn’t sure what that meant, but Kite kept smiling wryly so she didn’t want to question. Afterward Grandma relented in her efforts to get Kite to speak up, but he relaxed as a result and by the end of the meal the conversation was almost flowing. At least, Kite spoke up twice of his own volition.  
  
***  
  
When the weather was fair Mito never minded doing the laundry. After gathering it from the line and folding it, she was always a bit reluctant to return into the shadows of the house. She always paused to drink in a last warming faceful of sun, taking the step over the doorstep backwards. And so she was turned away when Kite came walking purposefully out of the hallway and bumped into her.  
  
“_Hey_-” she turned and shifted to balance the basket firmly on her hip.  
  
“Can I boil some water, Mito-san?” His voice was calm but something about his posture, or his eyes, or _something_ was very intense, almost as though ominous energy were actually radiating off him. A shiver ran down Mito’s spine.  
  
“Sure. But may I ask what for?”  
  
He was already stepping around her and filling the kettle with water. He put it on the stovetop and lit it, and stood bent over the burner, waiting for the water to boil.  
  
Mito hovered anxiously behind him, alarmed at his demeanor but unsure if it was a good idea to press him. “Should I be worried, Kite?” she asked at last, softly.  
  
He did a double take, looking up as though surprised to see her there. He visibly composed himself and somehow a rage in the atmosphere seemed to dissipate. “No,” he said after a second. “I’m sorry. Everything is fine.”  
  
Reluctantly she left, turning sideways to keep the laundry basket on her hip as she mounted the stairs. After putting away the clothes, she went back down. Kite was no longer in the kitchen. Shrugging to herself, she turned to her next task: getting some herbs from the garden.  
  
At the edge of the back patio she found Kite crouched down, face placid but steely, all his attention fixed on the ground as he poured boiling water onto an anthill.  
  
***  
  
“I want to take you into town,” Mito said late that afternoon as they kneaded bread on the kitchen table.  
  
Kite glanced up, skeptical. There was a smudge of flour on his nose.  
  
“But obviously you can’t go out dressed like that.” She indicated the shapeless smock, and Kite looked down at it. One eyebrow raised imperceptibly; he didn’t seem to agree, but Mito ignored him. “So,” she continued, “We have to get you some proper clothes. Your pants are okay, but I’m going to make some extras, and you definitely need a different shirt.” And somehow she really didn’t like the fact that he was wearing the same pants he had arrived in; mended and cleaned, yes, but still the pants he had worn while undergoing - The Ordeal. Whatever it was.  
  
“Make?” he echoed, sounding impressed.  
  
Mito nodded. “It’s actually cheaper to buy the fabric and do it yourself. And I’m a speedy sewer.” She wiggled her fingers illustratively. A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips.  
  
“So,” she said, all business. “What kind of shirt do you like?”  
  
“Turtleneck,” he said immediately.  
  
Something in Mito’s gut twisted. She hoped he didn’t notice how her eyes flicked pityingly to the glaring scar on his neck, visible above his collar, and away again. Probably he did. A blush rose on her cheeks. Too late to pretend, then. “Kite,” she said carefully, “No one is going to judge you for having a few scars-”  
  
He let out a laugh. Genuine, but somehow harsh. “I don’t care about that,” he said. “I always - I’ve always worn a turtleneck. I like them.”  
  
She chewed the inside of her lip. “Promise?”  
  
“I’d show you a photo if I hadn’t lost all my possessions.”  
  
“Okay. And what colors-”  
  
“White.”  
  
She grimaced. “Really? All the stains show up-”  
  
“White, please, Mito-san.” His tone was gentle but firm.  
  
She shrugged. “Alright. Are you sure you don’t want variety? I can do multiples for you. What about...” she eyed him critically. “Light blue?”  
  
A strange, pained expression flitted across his face before he returned his attention to the bread and began kneading it again. “Okay,” he said lightly.  
  
Dusting off her hands, Mito pulled out her pencil stub and tapped it against her lips. “So that’s... two white turtlenecks, one light blue, and black pants. I’ll have to take your measurements and then-”  
  
“Um.” There was a touch of a flush on Kite’s cheeks again as he interrupted her. “Mito-san,” he said, voice low, “I don’t - I said I lost all my - I lost my Hunter license. I can’t pay you. Right now.”  
  
So he was a Hunter. Of course he was. “I don’t care about that, Kite,” she said, more aggressively than she had intended. “It’s not much, and you’re a friend. I don’t expect you to pay for anything.”  
  
He was quiet for a long moment. Then, “Handmade clothes,” he said bitterly. “Food. Babying. I wake you up at night. You had to see me naked. I think I pissed in your bed.”  
  
The tight set of his mouth suddenly made Mito very angry. It made her very angry that he was angry at himself for suffering. She stood up and slammed her hands down on the table. Kite jolted back like he had been struck by lightning, chair grating on the floor. “I’m not taking care of you because I want _compensation_,” she spat. “I’m taking care of you because you’re Ging’s friend and Gon’s friend and because _someone_ has to do it, because _someone_ has to do it if the whole world isn’t going to be a terrible, awful place! I _don’t_ abandon people. I will _never_ abandon someone who needs me.”  
  
She caught her breath. Kite sat there stock-still, very white, barely breathing.  
  
“Okay?” she snapped.  
  
He blinked rapidly, as though trying to clear water out of his eyes. They were glazed, vacant. “I know you aren’t going to hurt me,” he whispered, voice barely staying level, “But I am very frightened right now.”  
  
At once she returned to herself and was filled with shame. She swallowed. “I apologize for shouting,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Would you feel better if I stayed, or left?”  
  
“Please go,” he said, not looking at her.  
  
She sucked in a shuddering breath and nodded, and left him sitting at the kitchen table.  
  
Grandma cast her a curious glance as she passed through the living room, but had the grace not to ask questions.  
  
It was dark outside before Mito returned to the kitchen to find two perfectly kneaded loaves of bread, a little over-risen, waiting neatly by the oven. Kite didn’t let her in to bring him dinner even though it was already late.  
  
***  
  
They didn’t talk about the conflict the next morning, which Mito shamefully hoped meant it was forgiven, if not forgotten. She knew she wouldn’t forget the look on his face, the first time anyone had looked to her as the cause of a bone-deep terror.  
  
After he ate, she took his measurements. He was untalkative, but calm - barely a tremor in his arms when she ghosted her measuring tape along their length, standing on a stool to reach. He paid a compliment to her skirt, a faded but colorful floral pattern, and Mito took it as an attempt to show her that he wasn’t holding a grudge. She thanked him, and complimented the plain oversized shirt she had criticized the day before, and he laughed. They both laughed, Kite covering his face in the delicate, self-conscious manner of a pretty girl, when the travel-size measuring tape proved insufficient for determining the precise height of his lanky legs and Mito had to fetch another tape. It was all so normal it made her heart ache.  
  
After tucking the paper with the measurements into her pocket, she went downstairs and prepared to go into town to purchase material. As she was lacing up her boots, she felt a presence behind her. She sighed. “Kite?”  
  
“Mito-san.”

The sound was even closer behind her than she had expected and she allowed herself to grimace a little, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t see her face. He still snuck up on her, like he did it on purpose. “What is it, Kite?” She finished tying the knot and stood up to face him, sweeping a loose strand of hair back from her forehead.  
  
Unconsciously he rubbed the back of his neck. It was an awkward gesture, but it was normal body language, and for that Mito was grateful. “I’d like to ask a favor, Mito-san. If that’s okay.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
Mutely he held out a piece of paper. She took it, studying the picture he had drawn there.  
  
“If you find a hat that looks like this,” he asked, very rough and quiet, “Could you please buy it? I’ll pay you back sometime. I promise.”  
  
She folded up the drawing and placed it in her pocket with a sigh. “Can I get it for you as a gift?” she asked. “I’m serious that you don’t owe me anything. It’s not important.”  
  
“It’s important to me,” he said, voice cracking and slipping into a whisper. “Please let me owe you this.”  
  
Her mouth twisted briefly and then she relented. “Fine. Fine. What color do you want?”  
  
He began to speak, but then stopped. His hand twitched. “Your choice.”  
  
She narrowed her eyes. “You have no preference at all?”  
  
“I’d like for you to choose for me.” He made a brief smile and briefer eye contact.  
  
She got it in blue. When she presented it to him that evening, surrounded by purple paper in a brown cardboard box, he went very still, except for his hands, which trembled, trembled.  
  
“Is this okay?” she asked anxiously. “Kite?”  
  
He blinked and his eyes were watery. He pulled it out of the box and put it on and when he looked up there was a big, stupid grin on his face. “How do I look?” he asked, voice taut with some emotion neighboring joy.  
  
“You look-” she had difficulty speaking because, without knowing _why_ this was his reaction, the desperate happiness he was trying to suppress was _moving_. “You look so great, Kite. You look wonderful.”  
  
He ran to the living room where there was a mirror on the wall, and he stared at his reflection, and, “I survived,” he said, voice shaking. “I survived. I survived.”  
  
Mito didn’t know what to say - she felt like an intruder into the space of a realization that he could only make for himself. Heart full, she brushed angrily at her eyes.  
  
After sorting and setting aside the materials for sewing - a project not fit to be commenced until the following day and proper lighting - they played scrabble in a mood of repressed euphoria. Grandma won, like always, but nothing could dampen the glow of life in Kite’s eyes. He laughed more easily than Mito had ever heard him, and responded to Grandma’s quips with an almost acerbic wit. He knew a lot of long words that weren’t in the dictionary, words he vehemently claimed were technical terms but really did exist and ought to count for points.  
  
“Obscure words are fine,” Grandma said, “But they have to be in the dictionary.” She tapped the dusty, faded cover with an imperial finger and Kite threw up his hands in defeat.  
  
Mito couldn’t help wondering if it would have been something like this, to know Ging as an adult. To have him around, a family member in more than name.  
  
But she pulled herself out of the creeping touch of melancholy that laid its fingers on her at the thought. Here was Kite: finally smiling, more here and more in need of her than Ging. Kite was what she had, for now. She should appreciate his progress, rather than being bitter over the absence of someone she didn’t really want back. (She told herself.) It was the presence of Gon that would have really added something to the evening. She missed him like a hole in her heart.  
  
“Mito? Your turn.”  
  
She blinked. Grandma and Kite were both looking at her - Grandma’s face amused but skeptical, Kite’s showing something solemn. Like he could detect the ache in her soul, could taste it on the air.  
  
“Sorry,” she said. Forced a smile. Played her turn.  
  
The next morning Mito found Kite already outside doing push-ups, hat still securely in place. She privately wondered if he had slept in it.  
  
***  
  
Despite his avowed ignorance of the work of a tailor, Kite turned out to be decent at sewing itself (“just mending,” he said, dismissively) and Mito delegated him the task of stitching by hand the parts of his new clothes that weren’t easily done on the machine but were simple enough not to be ruined by an amateur touch. His work was slow but precise, the neat thread-work gradually finishing the pieces. With his head bowed his hat concealed most of his expression, but he stuck his tongue just a tiny bit out of his mouth while he concentrated.  
  
Mito lifted her foot off the sewing machine pedal and leaned back, stretching her arms. That was the last shirt. Soon Kite would be able to wear clothes he felt good in.  
  
“Tea?” she said, standing up.  
  
Kite made a hum of appreciation, not looking up from his work. Mito went to brew a pot.  
  
When she returned a few minutes later with two cups of tea, Kite was still hunched over his sewing. As she came up behind him Mito wondered if he had always had this intense, almost naive power to concentrate all his attention on a given task, or if it was a method of distracting himself. She hoped it was the former. It reminded her a little of Gon, and she smiled.  
  
Holding out the tea, she touched Kite’s shoulder lightly. “Here-”  
  
He flinched violently, whipping his head around to face her, eyes flaring with fear before he got control of himself. “Sorry-” he had dropped the fabric and needle and poked himself, and blood was welling on his fingertip, and he fumbled at his lap, trying to pick up the white shirt without getting blood on it or becoming tangled in thread. “Sorry-”  
  
Swiftly she placed the cups down on the side table and crouched down in front of him, taking the shirt and needle both from him. “No, _I’m_ sorry,” she said, setting them aside. “I shouldn’t have surprised you like that.”  
  
The brim of his hat hid his eyes. He stuck his bleeding finger in his mouth and said nothing.  
  
Unsure of what to do - of how seriously she had just alarmed him - Mito picked up the tea again and held it out to him tentatively.  
  
But then he spoke, in a low, shuddering whisper. “When they - when they touched me, it came. The - strings. Like a puppeteer. Red strings in the darkness. And I - she made me fight - even Gon-” his voice cut out. He pressed a shaking hand to his lips.  
  
The fact that he was voluntarily talking about it, rather than repressing and ignoring his ordeal, did nothing to override the deep uneasiness Mito felt at that disjointed description, the muddled description of a half-remembered nightmare that left incomplete memories but total subjugation to a lingering fear. A fear that drew its icy fingers down Mito’s spine from only the description.  
  
She withdrew the proffered teacup, pulling it close for warmth. “You’re safe now, Kite,” she told him lamely. “You’re safe here.”  
  
“... I know,” he said at last, voice as hoarse as if he had been screaming.  
  
She wished she knew if his throat had been damaged at some point, or if his husky tone was natural, the way it was for some men. She wished she knew what on him was scar, and what original. When she had been a little girl, they had had a neighbor who was soft-spoken and avoided eye contact and jumped if you surprised him. Ging had sometimes snuck up on him for fun, but that was the sort of thing Ging could get away with - no one could hold a grudge against him for giving them a slight shock when he subsequently revealed the reason for his visit, the delivery of a homemade pie. Mito didn’t know what had happened to that neighbor. She couldn’t even remember his name. Somewhere along the line they had stopped visiting him. She knew he didn’t live on whale island anymore.  
  
The point being: some people were like that, leapt at unexpected touches. Mito didn’t touch Kite much since he had reclaimed the right to control his own personal hygiene, so it wasn’t that he had gotten worse. He jolted every time he was touched without warning. She would have to do better at remembering not to surprise him.  
  
That night his dreams were worse than usual and when Mito went in to quiet him down before he woke Grandma, she learned that he did, indeed, sleep in his hat.  
  
***  
  
For that, as well as a few other reasons, Mito was reluctant to bring Kite on a trip into town as she had promised. But he insisted.  
  
“It will be fine,” he said. “I’ll just stay close to you. I’m fine, really.”  
  
“You’ll have to talk to people,” Mito warned. “It’s not a large town, and people know me. They’ll notice you and ask questions.”  
  
“I’ll answer.”  
  
“They might ask about your scars,” she said. “What will you say?”  
  
She half expected him to freeze up, but he didn’t. “Spear fishing accident,” he said without missing a beat.  
  
“That’s-” she ran a hand through her hair. “Kite, they’re fishermen. What if they press you for details? They’ll know you’re lying.”  
  
“No, they won’t,” he said with assurance. “I know spear fishing.”  
  
“Really?” Grandma piped up, not looking away from her knitting. “He has the strangest variety of skills, Mito.”  
  
Mito grimaced. So many things could go wrong. “What if-”  
  
“Mito-san,” Kite interrupted, gently but firmly, “I would like to do this. I’m ready. I’m going to be okay.” He reached for the doorknob.  
  
“I sure hope you’re right!” she said heatedly. “If something goes wrong-”  
  
“Then you can say I told you so,” he said, opening the door. He looked at her pointedly, then out the door at the worn path leading to town. “After you, Mito-san.”  
  
There was no doubt in her mind that he meant the honorific as an expression of respect - he was _very_ concerned with politeness - but at times like this Mito couldn’t help hearing it as almost mocking. She scowled. “I hope you can even make it there. You haven’t exactly done much walking lately.”  
  
He ignored her.  
  
“If you don’t hurry up, you won’t have time to do everything and still get back before dark,” Grandma said.  
  
Mito rolled her eyes. Leave it to Grandma to team up on her. “Have a good day, Grandma,” she said sweetly, striding out the door and past Kite without looking back. “Don’t get lonely.”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
She heard Kite close the door, and then he fell into pace beside her. Mito put a hand over her eyes to shade them, gauging the position of the sun. They had plenty of time. For several minutes they walked in silence along the dusty path. When they reached the cover of the trees, Mito glanced up at Kite out of the corner of her eye. He seemed perfectly calm.  
  
“Are you nervous?” she asked.  
  
“No,” he said, not slowing his pace. “Why would I be? I’m not afraid of - I’m not afraid in general. It’s just still specific things...” his voice petered out, but his expression didn’t change.  
  
Mito hummed. Hopefully nothing would happen that would really alarm him. There would be a lot of ambient stimulus, a lot more sounds and people than he had gotten used to, but it was unlikely that anyone would get aggressive with him. People weren’t really like that on Whale Island.  
  
They walked the rest of the way mostly in silence, except that every once in awhile Kite would catch sight of some bird and perk up imperceptibly. He didn’t offer any information, but when Mito asked him he seemed eager enough to point out peculiarities of the species and variety, its coloration and flying pattern and habits. It made her a little sad, that he didn’t volunteer to talk about it. He seemed as excited about his surroundings as Gon was - and that was saying something - but he kept the enthusiasm quietly tied down.  
  
“Sorry, that’s - you definitely don’t need to know that much, Mito-san.” He gave an apologetic grin, lapsing into silence.  
  
“I don’t really understand, though,” she said, “Why they build their nests in the reeds if their eggs are so easily damaged by the damp.”  
  
He explained it. And like that, she kept the conversation going.  
  
They made it to town and Kite, skittish but stoic, maintained perfect composure. He hovered behind her shoulder solemnly most of the time, smiling easily when spoken to by friends and merchants, making jokes about spear fishing that even Mito didn’t understand but set the men on the docks in stitches. (It was strange, she remarked inwardly, and surprising, that he could be such a good showman in some contexts and so miserably awkward the rest of the time.)  
  
While she did her business he carried her heavy bag over one shoulder and idly examined the stalls and merchandise without moving too far away, a quiet, ubiquitous presence. By the time the afternoon had passed Mito could tell Kite was strung out and exhausted, something in the set of his shoulders and his mouth, but he didn’t complain. He did indeed attract attention, a head higher than most of the crowd and carrying himself almost proudly despite a slight tired slouch - another contradiction that Mito noted but had no time to ponder. It was a miracle, she thought as she saw him flinch at a passing man with his dog, that more people hadn’t tried to speak to him. She hastily concluded her business with the shopkeeper and returned to his side. He had positioned himself in between two stalls, staring into space, expression unreadable.  
  
“Kite?”  
  
He jumped. Slowly his eyes focused on her, that piercing gaze.  
  
“Let’s get food,” she said, trying to keep her tone chipper. “It’s getting late.” Indeed, the sun was already starting to dip towards the horizon.  
  
He gave a stiff nod. They bought food at a stall - the first one whose fragrant steam drew them over - and took a short walk up to a hillside to watch the sunset. It was too late to get home before dark, anyway.  
  
Dropping the bag down between them, Kite threw himself to the ground with a rush of released breath. Mito settled beside him and handed him his food.  
  
She realized she was ravenous and worked on eating the fish and vegetables on her stick with gusto. Casting a surreptitious glance sideways, she observed that Kite was eating - as always - with delicate, almost surgical precision, like he dreaded accidentally biting off too much at once or letting a single scrap fall. He seemed comfortable enough with the silence and focused on his task, so she bent her attention on her own meal.  
  
A few minutes later, Kite tossed his stick away. “Thanks, Mito-san,” he said. “That was very good.”  
  
“My pleasure,” she replied.  
  
Kite leaned back on his hands, settling back to take in the vista of brilliant orange sky, reflected darker and pinker in the sea.  
  
“Mito-san,” he said after a minute, eyes still fixed on the sky, “Will you tell me about Ging-san?”  
  
“Tell _you_?” she said. “I was just a kid when he left.”  
  
“Oh.” Kite blinked. “I didn’t realize.”  
  
“So you know him much better than I do,” she finished.  
  
Silence.  
  
“I’d love it if you could tell _me_ about him, actually, Kite.”  
  
He shot her a surprised, maybe anxious look. “Oh?” Seeing she was serious, he let out a strained laugh. “I guess. Um. He didn’t really - he was a private person, he didn’t talk about personal stuff a lot. I didn’t even know he had a kid until after I met Gon.”  
  


Apparently getting details out of Kite wasn’t going to be easy. “Tell me how you and Ging met?” she said.  
  
“It’s a boring story,” Kite replied lightly.  
  
Mito frowned. It hadn’t sounded like a boring story from the details he had let slip at dinner. “Kite, why won’t you talk about him? Did something happen between you and Ging?”  
  
“Happen?” Kite echoed, looking uncomfortable.  
  
“Did you have a falling out?”  
  
He made a strange face. “What? No. I haven’t seen Ging-san for awhile, but-”  
  
“Let’s start there,” Mito interrupted briskly. “Why do you call him Ging-san if he’s your friend?”  
  
“He’s - he’s not just my friend. He was my teacher.”  
  
“He’s a biologist?!”  
  
“What - no, my nen master.”  
  
“Oh. Nen,” she said, nodding sagely. Gon had explained it to her. A little. “Are you good at it?”  
  
He tilted his head down a fraction and just like that the brim of his hat concealed his eyes again, cast his face into deep blue shadow. “I was pretty good, yes. Ging-san was much better.”  
  
That question had seemed to upset him. But Mito still wanted to hear about Ging. And maybe learn more about Kite by proxy, since he didn’t exactly volunteer information about himself, either. She changed tracks. “Were you close?”  
  
“Close?” Kite repeated, now sounding definitely worried. “I don’t know.”  
  
Mito sighed. Kite was remarkably awkward for someone who had as much _presence_ as he did. He was very weird, in a subtle kind of way. “Did you ever do things together? Outside of him teaching you?”  
  
“Well... sure,” Kite said. “We worked together a few times. But I guess that was training as well.”  
  
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes in frustration, Mito tried one last time. “I don’t - he didn’t just run away when you finished these jobs, did he? He wasn’t annoyed to be working with you?”  
  
At that Kite seemed to relax slightly, letting out a low laugh. “He did leave pretty quick, to be honest. Ging-san always has his eyes turned forward. He gets bored with the present.” A pause. “And whoever’s in it.”  
  
But the fondness in Kite’s voice didn’t speak of a bitter student desperate for his master’s approval. They really were friends, then - or, as close as Ging got to friends, probably. As if to prove it, Kite continued, absently ripping up a few blades of grass and rubbing them between his fingers as he spoke. “We used to, you know, celebrate when we finished a job. Get drinks. He told the craziest stories, but I’d bet my life all of them were true.” A smile tugged at his lips.  
  
“And his other students?” Mito asked. “Did they work with you, too?”  
  
“Oh, no,” Kite said, turning to look at her directly in mild surprise. “Ging-san has no other students. I practically had to force him to teach me.”  
  
“Oh.” Mito thought about that. Kite was agreeable, really, in general, which seemed to suggest that Ging - if he had difficulty getting along with Kite - wasn’t. Which wouldn’t surprise her.  
  
As though reading her mind, Kite’s brow furrowed while he thought. “I mean,” he added abruptly, “Ging-san might have over students I don’t know about. I guess.”  
  
Mito’s heart filled with a nameless sympathy at the perfect nonchalance in his tone. “You admire him a lot, don’t you?”  
  
Eyes shining, Kite nodded. “He’s one of the finest Hunters there is. Sometimes I still can’t believe I was lucky enough for him to teach me.”  
  
Unbidden, Mito felt annoyance on Kite’s behalf - a deep, sad annoyance for the fact that Ging left Kite behind and Kite still worshipped the man - rise in her. There he sat, long limbs splayed comfortably, silver hair falling about his shoulders, hat firmly in place, a tiny soft smile on his face as though the mere thought of his master warmed him from within. Kite looked good, Mito thought, in clothes he had picked out, that fit him properly. He looked more like a person than a patient, a real human being painted in the pink and purple light of the dimming sunset. And it made her mad as hell that Kite could care so much about someone that was so callous in return. “It doesn’t sound like luck had anything to do with it, if Ging’s that difficult to please, Kite,” she said. “He must have seen something really special in you.”  
  
“I’m nothing special,” Kite said without hesitation. “Just stubborn, maybe.” He brushed some grass onto the ground, a listless movement that went up his whole arm.  
  
“Tell me about him,” Mito insisted again, gently, as curiosity got the better of her once more. “Just... describe what it’s like to be around him. What he’s like. I only saw him once since I was a kid, Kite. Please.” She didn’t mention that it was she who had warned him never to come back.  
  
As though despondent, Kite didn’t seem to react. But then he raised a hand to rub at the back of his neck - fingers ghosting across the scar there, almost but not entirely concealed by the turtleneck - and Mito realized he was thinking. “What’s it like to be around Ging-san?” Kite echoed. “He’s just... exciting. Things happen around him. He shows up out of nowhere, looking like he rolled in shit, and does something outrageous. It doesn’t even seem like he follows the excitement; it’s like the excitement is drawn to him, like he’s the center of the world. And you want to be there.”  
  
_You?_ Mito wanted to say scathingly, but she bit her tongue. Kite, clearly. Gon, clearly. But no, not her. Whatever spell Ging exuded did not have the same effect on everyone. “So he’s always filthy?” she said instead. “I was hoping it was a one-time thing.”  
  
Kite laughed. “I’ve seen him clean... four times, I think. Honestly, he looks worse.”  
  
“Doubt it,” Mito muttered.  
  
“I mean, he can act like an asshole,” Kite added. “But it doesn’t matter somehow. He’s like... a light. I don’t know.”  
  
“A light?” she asked skeptically.  
  
“It sounds stupid out loud, doesn’t it?” Kite said with a wry laugh. “But I’m not trying to be dramatic.” He paused, a tiny fond smile rising once more at some memory. “After I passed my Hunter exam,” he said, voice low, “He told me to meet him somewhere. But he didn’t show. I waited for a week. Then I figured it out: the message he had given me was a riddle. I worked it out, and I found him. Somehow that made me feel more triumphant than passing the exam itself.”  
  
Mito frowned. “Were you worried?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“When he said he would meet you and he disappeared. Were you worried?”  
  
“That’s not the point,” Kite said, a slight furrow appearing between his brows, like he was vaguely put off by the fact that she would even consider his feelings to be relevant to the story. “He did the same thing a bunch of times again, more difficult every time. He wasn’t just planning poorly or being forgetful - he was _training_ me!”  
  
Kite glowed as he said it, as though explaining that Ging had saved his life. It left a bad taste in Mito’s mouth, but she said nothing.  
  
“If I had failed even a single one of Ging-san’s tests, I wouldn’t ever have seen him again. But by pushing myself, I grew so much. I wouldn’t have made it this far if he had been even a little different. I wouldn’t have made it through if he hadn’t forced me to rely on myself.”  
  
He paused before continuing. “That’s what it’s like to be around Ging-san. You have to _earn_ your place by his side. You have to earn it every time you’re there. If you’re out of sight, he forgets about you. It’s frustrating, but it’s exhilarating, too - because when you’re with him you know you’re part of something important, and you know he isn’t just humoring you. You know you _belong_ there.”  
  
“All I hear is that he’s a jerk to you but you worship him anyway,” Mito snapped, unable to stop herself. “Does someone really care about you if you have to earn your way into their presence every time? Love is only love if it’s freely given.”  
  
Turning to her, Kite’s eyes flashed with anger. “And are you bitter that I’ve spent more time in his orbit?” he shot back acerbically.  
  
“_No_,” she said. She was more shocked by Kite’s tone, the most aggressive she’d heard from him, than by the fact that he’d managed to so fluidly miss the main point of her tirade.  
  
“Then why ask about him? You wanted to know what Ging-san is like. I gave my best description.” He turned away from her again, mouth pressed in a hard line.  
  
Mito squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to calm down before she made things worse. Kite talking back to her was _good_; it meant he was comfortable enough not to be afraid of her. That was a _good_ thing. Especially given that he must have been tired and cranky.  
  
“Forget about Ging, then,” she said, in a tone that she hoped conveyed hatchet-burying and earnestness, trying to catch his eye under the brim of his hat. “Tell me about _you_.”  
  
Kite said nothing for a beat, and Mito worried he was angry. But when he spoke his voice was low and placid. “There’s nothing to tell about me that doesn’t involve Ging-san.”  
  
Scowling in confusion, Mito blinked. “That’s not true,” she said. “I know that isn’t true. You’re your own person.”  
  
Under his hat Kite’s eyes remained hidden, but his mouth tightened imperceptibly. “If you really care that much, you can hear my whole life story. Here it is: don’t remember where I was born. Don’t remember any parents. Grew up in a sewer. Found by Ging-san; taught by Ging-san to be a Hunter. Didn’t have to starve to death during the winter, or get sick, or get knifed during a botched theft. Everything I am, I owe to him.” Kite didn’t say it with the drama of a revelation, but with a quietness that suggested total, unyielding certainty that what he said was true.  
  
“Even so,” Mito murmured. “That’s just one way of telling the story.” She, too, could describe her life in terms of Ging. She chose not to.  
  
Kite, apparently, didn’t. He shifted, pulling his knees close to his body and resting his chin on them. “Only accurate way,” he said. “There’s nothing else to tell about me, really.”  
  
And Mito hated that he sounded like he truly believed it.  
  
She wanted to ask him about The Event, but suddenly it felt like she had already pushed too far and Kite was shutting down. There almost seemed to be something in his spirit that was too sad to abide questioning.  
  
They sat in silence.  
  
While they were speaking the velvet blueness of night had truly enveloped them and if not for the fireflies beginning to flit about, it would have been difficult to see. Kite lifted a hand when one came close and lightly wafted it higher, its body casting a pale yellow glow on his palm.  
  
“Do you know if they lay their eggs in salt water or fresh water?” he asked suddenly.  
  
“Um. No.” Gon probably knew.  
  
Kite hummed in recognition and the conversation lapsed once more. There was a tired blankness in his expression, but it seemed content rather than uncomfortable.  
  
To hell with it, Mito though, and pushed her luck once again. “Kite, excuse me if this is a bad question to ask, but why are you here? Why didn’t Gon bring you to a hospital? You were really sick, you could have died.”  
  
After the barest pause for thought, Kite gave an indifferent shrug, though his eyes (visible once more under his hat, thanks to a new angle) glinted with some kind of grim amusement. “Maybe he knew it would be bad if the first thing I saw when I woke up was a doctor, of all things.”  
  
“Why, are you afraid of doctors?”  
  
“...You could say that.”  
  
“Well, then why not bring you to someone you know, somewhere familiar? I mean, do you have a home anywhere?”  
  
“Like the sewer?”  
  
That was an option she hadn’t even considered. She felt color rise in her cheeks. “Oh - I’m - I didn’t-”  
  
He met her eye and gave a scoffing little huff of laughter out of his nose. Kidding, then. She brushed her hair back self-consciously and laughed a little, back.  
  
“No,” he said. “I generally just... move around. Based on what I’m doing. No home base.” He picked at some dust on his knee. “I like it that way. I don’t really - I don’t really get how people would want to be tied down. To one place.” He glanced at her again. “No offence.”  
  
“Well... people, then?” she pressed stubbornly, forcing herself not to speculate about how that outlook might relate to Ging’s influence. “People can be home. Do you have family? Friends?”  
  
His expression flickered between annoyance and something like worry. “Friends? I guess so,” he said. “My survey team. I...” he swallowed. “I like them a lot.”  
  
“Where are they?”  
  
“No clue.” The twinge of vulnerability in his tone disappeared under briskness. “I haven’t seen them since - _since_.” The last word carried scathing emphasis. It was an incomplete sentence, but it said enough.  
  
They both looked up. The sky appeared smoothly cloudless in absence of the moon’s light, but there were no stars. No wind. Out across the water it was impossible to tell where the sky dipped into the sea. Whale Island might have been a mountain over a void of velvet blue.  
  
“It’s getting late,” Mito said at last. “Do you feel up to heading back now?”  
  
Kite grimaced. “Every muscle in my body is sore for some reason. But I’m not going to get more energy if we wait longer.”  
  
Nodding, Mito braced a hand on the ground and climbed to her feet, brushing dirt from her skirt. Kite rose beside her, a tall white slip in the darkness. He leaned down, reaching for the bag.  
  
“I’ll carry it,” Mito said, holding out her hand.  
  
“I’ve got it.”  
  
“You just said you were sore.”  
  
“I’m fine.” He hefted it over his shoulder. He didn’t wince, but of course he wouldn’t wince, aware of her eyes on him, determined not to demonstrate any sign of pain. Probably he had felt pain ten, a hundred times worse and not shown any sign of it. Being a Hunter got you into situations like that. Being Ging’s student, maybe.  
  
“_Kite_,” she said, eyes blazing, “_Give me the bag_.”  
  
He hesitated. His eyes flicked shiftily from her outstretched hand to her face and back again. Wordlessly he gave her the bag.  
  
“Thanks, Kite.”  
  
He said nothing, just gave a curious little shake of the head, dismissive, maybe.  
  
She tried not to blame herself when his responses reverted first to monosyllable and then to silence on the trek back to the house. He was exhausted, after all.  
  
But she had given him an order, and he had not disobeyed.  
  
***  
  
Days passed. Kite spent his time helping Mito with the odd jobs she did for neighbors - in just a little time his sewing improved drastically, and she even taught him to use the machine - and wandering around the perimeters of the property, pushing farther afield every time but never venturing even as far as Gon had by the time he was six years old. It was like Kite was afraid of the darkness in the forest. But he climbed the trees and drew pictures of the animals he found on scrap paper - precise technical drawings that were scientifically accurate but still charming.  
  
Briefly he tried chopping wood, but he worked too efficiently at it and Mito had to stop him before he deforested the area. He could turn an entire tree into perfectly split firewood in a few hours, the motions of the axe in his hand disturbing to watch for how unnatural they looked; he brought it up too quickly for the eye to catch, as though the axe clipped through space to be constantly ready to swing anew, and the head cut the wood like butter. Mito, transfixed in an upstairs window, had watched him make the motions robotically for ten minutes straight without pausing or faltering before he straightened up to lift his hat and wipe sweat from his brow, a casual motion as though he had been cutting wood like a normal person. His bare back got a nasty sunburn but he didn’t seem to notice, still taking a hot bath that night. It must have hurt him.  
  
An upside from the wood chopping: he had gained a little weight, Mito noted with relief, since the last time she had seen him shirtless. He no longer looked on the brink of starvation.  
  
When she didn’t have tasks for him to help her with (and he was persistent in seeking them out, determined to contribute something), he sometimes trained on his own, trying to get his strength back, doing push-ups and sit-ups and the same stupid headstand one-handed push-up thing Gon did.  
  
Other times Kite meditated. At least, he sat cross-legged on the ground to one side of the yard with his eyes screwed shut, so Mito assumed he was meditating. Once she tried to approach him, but before she got within ten meters she suddenly broke into a sweat and a sinking feeling of dread clenched around her stomach. She inched a foot forwards on the dust, the tiny motion making her muscles shake with effort. It was like she had suddenly fallen into the grip of a fever. “K-kite?” she managed to say.  
  
His eyes flew open and at once the day was sunny again. “Mito-san!” he said, clambering to his feet. “Is-”  
  
“What - what _was_ that?”  
  
“Just nen training. I’m sorry,” he said, voice low and concerned. “Is something wrong?”  
  
“I-it felt-” she suppressed a sob. “It felt _awful-_”  
  
He abruptly tipped his hat down, casting his face in shadow, making his expression unreadable. “It wasn’t supposed to be that,” he said quietly.  
  
Very nice, Mito wanted to say, that nen could accidentally make her feel more upset than she had felt when she was holding in bile, cleaning scum and excrement and blood off of a stranger’s body, a body so desecrated it might as well have been a corpse. She let out a shuddering breath.  
  
“Sorry,” Kite said shortly.  
  
“It’s okay.”  
  
She went back inside and left him to his own devices. She decided she didn’t really like nen.  
  
***  
  
Mito was a light sleeper and her room was directly beneath Kite’s. Or, rather, she had put Kite in the room above her on purpose so that she could keep track of any odd goings-on.  
  
Kite was proud and independent and while he had slowly rejected the different services she offered in favor of reclaiming his personal autonomy, he had never asked her to stop visiting him in the night. He never talked about his nightmares at all during the day, like he did not even remember he had been woken, and as though by unspoken agreement Mito did not mention it either, preferring to let him keep his spurious pride. She suspected that if she ever brought it up he would find a way to suffer in silence without alerting her when he was in distress, and that was an outcome she wanted to avoid.  
  
Over time the nightmares had become less frequent, but still every few nights she was awoken by quiet distressed sounds emanating through the ceiling and she had to rise blearily, grabbing a flashlight, and make her way up the stairs to his room.  
  
This night it sounded like the nightmares were worse than they had been in awhile.  
  
Creaking the door open, she trained the thin beam of light onto the bed to catch a writhing form, more monster than human, twisting in the sheets as it let out keening snarls of terror.  
  
“Kite!” she said, too loudly, because half of the point of this was to not wake Grandma. But unconscious, he looked like a demon taken over a man, and her heart was skipping beats and she needed him to awaken and act normal. “Kite!”  
  
In response he only jolted more violently, making some approximation of words.  
  
She approached him. “_Kite_!” she said a third time, forcefully enough that he sat up, panting.  
  
Awake, but not yet freed from the nightmare. Mouth pulled into a spittle-flecked grimace, eyes once again unfocused like he was seeing things that weren’t there, he sucked in a rattling breath.  
  
“Kite – Kite-” she touched his arm and he spasmed. “It’s just a dream, Kite, you’re okay.”  
  
He made a desperate sound and wrenched himself away from her, curling up so she could only see his back.  
  
Slowly his shaking subsided and she tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder. He jumped at the touch, but settled into it. She stroked him soothingly through the thin material of the nightshirt, whispering comforting nonsense. His breathing slowed.  
  
Mito shut her heavy eyes, body demanding that she go back to sleep. It was still the middle of the night. She withdrew her hand and moved to rise, her own bed calling her.  
  
“P-please-” Kite rasped. “Please don’t leave.”  
  
She pulled the chair closer and leaned onto the bed, getting into as comfortable a position as she could. She didn’t know who fell back asleep faster, her or Kite. (She didn’t know if Kite fell back asleep at all.) All she knew was that he didn’t move or make a sound again.  
  
When she awoke late the next morning with a crick in her neck, the bed had been made under her and Kite was gone.  
  
***  
  
Mito was taking a break from the afternoon’s work with a steaming cup of coffee when Kite came in, stretching his arms. He still walked soundlessly, but there was an easygoing nigh-swagger to his movement when he stood up straight that was encouraging. As in, it looked like the walk of a non-traumatized person.  
  
“Hello,” she said. “Want a cup?” She immediately stood up, already moving towards the cabinet.  
  
“I got it, thanks, Mito-san.”  
  
She sat back down as he took a cup and the sugar bowl down, pouring himself coffee from the half-full pot. “What have you been up to?” Mito asked his back, taking a sip of her own drink. She hadn’t seen him all morning.  
  
“Just working on some training stuff,” he said without turning around. He dumped a rounded spoonful of sugar into the coffee and stirred it, spoon clattering on the porcelain.  
  
“In the forest?”  
  
Spoon poised back over the bowl, he paused. A drip of coffee fell into the sugar. “Hm? No, it’s giving me the jitters today. I was just around the side of the house.” He put more sugar in his coffee.  
  
“The forest is giving you the jitters?”  
  
“Yeah.” His reply was short. It sounded like he didn’t want to talk about it. Mito hoped further questioning wouldn’t sound like prying.  
  
“I didn’t notice you at the side of the house,” she ventured.  
  
Again he stiffened before responding. “I’m not surprised by that,” was his cryptic answer. He put a final spoonful of sugar in his coffee and stirred it one last time before tapping the spoon dry on the edge of his cup and putting it in the sink. He replaced the sugar bowl in the cabinet and came to sit down beside her with a slight wince and then a long sigh. He stretched his legs out all the way so they poked past the side of the table. He smoothed a hand down his thigh.  
  
“Sore?” Mito asked.  
  
“Mm.” A gesture that mixed nod and shrug. He blew on his drink.  
  
“You push yourself too hard,” she accused, leaning toward him. “You’re never going to recover fully if you keep hurting yourself.”  
  
He shook his head. “I’m not hurting myself. Can’t build muscle if you don’t get sore. Besides, it might even be psychosomatic.”  
  
With a huff she subsided back into her chair and drained the dregs of her coffee. Psychosomatic muscle soreness was not a phenomenon she had ever heard of, but there was no point in arguing with him. He had already moved on and was taking a first careful sip of his own coffee. He maintained a perfectly neutral face despite the fact that the sugar must have been overwhelming. She hadn’t known he had a sweet tooth.  
  
Framed in profile with his lips on fine china, the delicacy of his grip and dignity of his expression appeared affected, over-proper, false, like he was trying to make some point without having to speak. Merely thinking about trying to interpret it gave Mito a headache. Good thing she was probably simply reading too much into things as she always did.  
  
The hand that wasn’t holding his cup tapped lightly and silently on the table in indiscernible rhythm. It fell in a patch of sunlight from the window, but rather than warming the hand the light made it look even paler than it really was, like a beautiful dead thing frozen in white. When he raised his drink to his mouth Kite bent his head forward instead of just tilting the cup, and his nose almost dipped in the liquid each time he took a sip.  
  
“Are you done for today?” Mito asked. “With training?”  
  
An evasive shrug. “Maybe. I had a bit of a breakthrough before. I might try something else after this.”  
  
The breakthrough might account for the confidence evident in his demeanor today. Kite’s manner was protean at the best of times, easygoing joking turning into mute anxiety at the drop of a hat (literally, once), and Mito could foresee the success not lasting. “Well, don’t overdo it,” she said, knowing he was unlikely to listen.  
  
“Of course.” Which might have been affirmation or denial, grammatically speaking.  
  
Not sure of what else to do, Mito shrugged back at him. Out of all the people she’d met Kite was one of the most stubborn, which was saying something. “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” she said, standing up and stretching.  
  
His gaze flicked up to her. “What do you think you’ll do next?”  
  
She pressed a finger to her chin, thinking. “Would it be overkill to walk to town for some onions for dinner? We’ve run out, and the ones in the garden won’t be ready to pick for a little while.”  
  
“Dinner without onions is like a woman who can’t cook,” Kite said, like he was reciting a proverb. “It’s okay once, but if you have to put up with it in the long term you’re going to suffer.”  
  
Mito frowned. “Who said that?”  
  
“Ging-san,” Kite said with a flash of a grin. “Which is really funny when you think of some of the ‘dinners’ he eats.”  
  
“It’s also funny because I doubt even a woman who can’t cook to save her life would be interested in getting within twenty meters of him,” Mito replied airily.  
  
In response Kite just laughed in agreement, taking another sip of coffee. “Casual sexism aside,” he said, “You should go. I would love some onions with dinner. If it’s not too much trouble.”  
  
Mito agreed. Kite saw her off, waving from the gate.

Not four minutes in her way down the road to town, she encountered their neighbor, a heavily-laden basket of vegetables over his arm.  
  
“Mito!” he said, mopping the sweat on his forehead. “Good to see you. I was just coming to deliver some veggies. The missus is trying to get rid of them; that green thumb of hers has gone crazy and they’re ripening faster than we can preserve ‘em. Never seen anything like it. Want some daikon and onions?” He wiggled the basket invitingly.  
  
“Oh! Thank you.” Mito took the basket from him, grateful not to have to make the trek down to the harbor. “These look lovely.”  
  
“Great, great,” he replied, extracting a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his face. Mito hefted the basket, testing its weight.  
  
“How are you doing?” she asked. “Everything alright aside from the daikon surplus?”  
  
“Oh, nothing to tell. And how are you?”  
  
“Very well, thanks.”  
  
“Good, good. And Grandma?”  
  
“She’s well, too. As fierce as ever.” Mito wanted to turn and go back up the path, but the neighbor didn’t seem to be ready to leave. Keeping her face neutral, she waited politely.  
  
He scratched his nose. “And how’s that, um, man you’re living with doing?”  
  
There it was. “Fine,” Mito said stiffly. “He’s recovering well.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“That’s good.” He looked like he wanted to learn something more, but Mito wasn’t about to volunteer information. If he wanted to know, he would have to ask.  
  
Apparently that prospect was too daunting. “Well, thanks for taking them vegetables off our hands, Mito. Let us know if you think up any new ways to eat onions.”  
  
“I will. And thanks.” She indicated the basket again with an appreciative nod.  
  
They parted ways.  
  
She headed to the kitchen to begin cleaning and storing the vegetables, but right as she reached the door she heard a strange sound coming from around the side of the house. Frowning slightly, she put the basket down as quietly as she could and crept closer to the sound.  
  
“This is pathetic, man,” she heard an odd, unfamiliar voice say. It was gravelly and almost tinny, like an electronic children’s toy that had smoked too many cigarettes, gained sentience, and contracted rabies. “I feel so fuckin’ weak it’s like I’m barely here,” it was saying. “What the fuck have you been doing, you worthless bitch? Has your will atrophied as much as your biceps?”  
  
“Shut up,” came Kite’s voice in a tired growl. “I’m doing my best, you piece of shit. Now get lost and we’ll try again.”  
  
The first voice made an angry noise.  
  
“Kite?” Mito asked, coming around the corner. “Is someone there?”  
  
No one was there. Kite stood alone under the line, silhouetted against the laundry. “Hmm?” he said. “No. Sorry. I was just... thinking out loud.”  
  
He seemed perfectly natural, which Mito didn’t like at all because it meant that he was a good liar. That anything else he had said before, that had struck her as sincere, might have been a lie.  
  
She pursed her lips. “Oh? Were you practicing doing different voices? Because I could’ve sworn I heard-”  
  
“It’s rude to make fun of someone’s voice,” Kite said in a tone that might have expressed amusement or genuine affront. Again, so natural that it made Mito grit her teeth.  
  
“I know what I heard,” she said. “Explain what the other voice was. _Now_.”  
  
He blinked several times, as though in surprise. Then, with a heavy sigh, he made a gesture and - some _thing_ materialized in the air beside him.  
  
“I got a slot machine in my mouth!” it said. “It goes-”  
  
“What the-” Mito whispered.  
  
“This is my nen ability,” Kite said over the clown. “Sadly.”  
  
Beside him it glared at them both with a plasticky vacancy. “I’m supposed to produce different weapons, but Kite is too much of a loser to generate enough energy. He can conjure me, but I can’t do shit right now. Talk about a bad fuckin’ roll. Can’t even pull the lever!”  
  
“Please put it away,” Mito said faintly.  
  
“Piss off,” Kite said, and the clown laughed mockingly, clearly ready to continue criticizing Kite, but it blinked out of existence before it could.  
  
They stood there silently for a minute.  
  
“Explain,” Mito said.  
  
Kite frowned slightly. “I said it’s my nen ability. Gon didn’t-?”  
  
“Well, he explained a little,” she said, almost hysterically. “But I thought nen abilities were things like - like punching hard or - or shooting lasers out of your eyes. Not-”  
  
“Yeah,” Kite said heavily. “I’m sorry it’s so rude. I didn’t think you would notice us so soon.”  
  
Mito rubbed her forehead. “It’s - it’s okay. So you’re... a conjuror?” Like Gon’s friend Kurapika.  
  
“Crazy slots is a conjuror ability, yes.”  
  
“But you’re having trouble with your... powers?”  
  
His mouth tightened. “I’m out of practice,” he said tersely. “I couldn’t climb Pakoreax Mountain in an hour, either, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be back to normal with a little training.”  
  
“Okay.” She laughed weakly. “Will it... stop talking like that once you’re stronger?”  
  
“Not really,” he said, sounding annoyed. She wasn’t sure if he was annoyed at her or at the clown or at the situation in general.  
  
She decided she _hated_ nen.  
  
A few nights later when Kite’s thrashing woke her, it came as a relief. That clown had taken it upon itself to give her nightmares, too.  
  
***  
  
When Mito got up before dawn in preparation for a full day of gardening, she wasn’t expecting to find Kite already sitting in a kitchen chair in the grey half-light, fingers playing absently with the handle of the steaming mug of tea before him.  
  
“Good morning,” Mito said in surprise. “You’re up early.”  
  
“Morning,” he replied. Lifted the mug to his lips and took a sip, though it looked to be too hot.  
  
“Did you sleep alright?” she asked when he didn’t elaborate.  
  
“Wanted to get up.”  
  
His voice was relaxed, unreadable; too studiously casual for her to believe it after catching him lying about the clown thing. But she had never yet had luck in getting him to share details he didn’t want to share. She sighed and put the half-full kettle back on the stove. “Have you eaten?”  
  
Slowly he shook his head, raising the tea to his mouth and blowing on it softly. “I don’t want anything yet, thanks.”  
  
“Don’t forget to eat,” she warned. “Okay?”  
  
He cast a wan smile in her direction, tilting his head so his expression became visible under the brim of his hat. He looked more tired than usual. “Sure.”  
  
If she hadn’t been periodically waking him up from the nightmares, she might have suspected he wasn’t sleeping at all.  
  
She made herself congee and they didn’t speak. The sun crept up and the kitchen slowly went from grey to yellow.  
  
“Mito-san?” Kite said, just as she was putting on her straw hat and heading for the door.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I haven’t been to the beach yet. I’m going to go to the beach today and go swimming.”  
  
She paused, hand on the doorknob, frowning. Mentally she ran through her schedule. “Today? Can it wait until tomorrow? I have to-”  
  
“You can,” he cut in lightly. “I’m going to go alone.” He sipped his tea.  
  
“Alone?”  
  
He nodded, studiously ignoring the edge to her voice.  
  
Inexplicably Mito felt trapped. Had he purposely chosen a day where she was busy? “Wait until tomorrow, Kite, we’ll go together.”  
  
“No. I’d like to go today.”  
  
She hated how calm he was. “What if-”  
  
“I’m going to pack a lunch and head out in a bit. I should be back before dark.”  
  
It was incredible how unflappable he was. He wasn’t even arguing with her, like her opinion on the matter was inconsequential. It made her blood boil, but she took a steadying breath and smoothed down her apron. “Fine,” she said shortly. “Fine. Have a good time.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
She didn’t catch him leaving the house, but when she returned for lunch he seemed to have departed.  
  
He wasn’t back for dinner.  
  
He wasn’t back when it got dark.  
  
Mito thought she was doing a good job concealing her worry until she caught Grandma looking at her amusedly as she bustled past her chair for the third time.  
  
“What?” Mito snapped.  
  
“He’ll be fine. Relax.”  
  
“I am relaxed.”  
  
Grandma laughed at her. “Sit down for a minute, Mito. You really care about him a lot, don’t you?”  
  
With a huff Mito threw herself down on the couch. “He’s my responsibility. I shouldn’t have let him go out on his own, he’s not ready-”  
  
“He’s a grown man. Calm down. You can’t control him forever.”  
  
Mito bristled. “I’m not trying to _control_ him-”  
  
“You know what I mean,” Grandma said, waving a hand. “He’s not a kid, it’s useless to try and protect him. Men always go off and do stupid things they might not be ready for. You just have to let them do it.”  
  
Mito slumped lower, glancing at the clock. She was due to go to bed in just over an hour, and he still wasn’t back.  
  
“It’s been nice having him around,” Grandma said after a minute. “He’s a nice boy.”  
  
Mito nodded. Kite _was_ nice, even as he was strange and awkward and taciturn. “He’s different from what I would have expected of a friend of Ging’s.”  
  
Grandma hummed, sounding somehow displeased at the response. “He’s very nice. And handsome, too. I bet all the girls had their eyes on him when you went into town.”  
  
“What? Maybe. I didn’t notice anything.”  
  
“Any girl would be lucky-”  
  
Suddenly Mito caught on. She shot Grandma an alarmed look. “No.”  
  
“I’m just-”  
  
“_No_.”  
  
Grandma pursed her lips. “I’m just saying-”  
  
Luckily that was the moment Kite chose to open the front door.  
  
Glad for the excuse to leave Grandma’s plotting, Mito leapt up. “Kite!” she said in obvious relief.  
  
He glanced up, latched the door behind him without looking. “Hi.”  
  
“You were out for a while,” she said. “Did you have a good time?”  
  
“Not really,” he answered, swinging his bag off his shoulder and shaking out his hair a little. “I saw something that upset me and then I spent the next few hours just trying to calm down.”  
  
It was difficult to discern how much he was understating the facts. Mito bit her lip. “I should have gone with you.”  
  
“No,” he said sharply. “I’m not a child or an invalid. If I can’t deal with a stray-” He made a hiss of frustration, dragging a hand down his face. “I have to get used to the real world somehow, Mito-san. Thank you, though.”  
  
“Would you like a hot drink before bed?”  
  
“No, thanks,” he said, slipping past her. “I’m just going to go to sleep.”  
  
“Can I get you a-”  
  
“No thanks, Mito-san,” he said, already mounting the stairs, her attempts to engage him brushed away like so many flies. He mounted stairs quickly, two at a time, like one might expect of someone with legs long enough to comfortably do three. His feet receded out of view.  
  
“Goodnight,” she said after him.  
  
“Goodnight, Mito-san.” And his door clicked shut.  
  
***  
  
Life went on. Kite was distant and invulnerable (self-sufficient) and delicately helpless (but still emotionally impregnable) in turns. Sometimes Mito worried he was retrogressing, but then a new impish quip or easy laugh would remind her that recovery wasn’t constant. The overall trend was one of Kite relaxing and becoming more capable, and the overall trend was what mattered.  
  
There were also certain shining moments that were almost breathtaking in their simple beauty. One evening Mito returned from town at dusk to see the warm orange light of the living room burning through the darkness. She came in and dropped off her things and she saw Kite, sitting on the ground before Grandma’s chair, seemingly asleep as she brushed his hair. It had grown a good few inches since he had come to Whale Island. His head lolled to one side, resting against her leg, and despite the slight furrow in his brow he looked utterly at rest - a frown more of appreciation than anything else. His hat was balanced on one bent knee.  
  
It was the most relaxed Mito had seen him since - since right after the fever broke, when he was terminally exhausted but no longer delirious.  
  
Moments like this made her forget that her home was a place that existed to be left behind. Ging chased something; others chased Ging, drawn by his allure into a spiral of searching that widened and widened and never found its goal, because the goal _was_ the spiral, and it grew as others fed on it.  
  
But here - here was grandma brushing the formerly-matted hair of someone who had once fought against any touch. A fair trade-off, Mito thought fiercely. I’ll save them. Let them leave; I’ll save them anyway, and keep doing it, no matter how many times they refuse to stay.  
  
And in her heart, a sneaking hope that if Kite could feel the indescribable peace of that moment - and _surely he could_\- he wouldn’t mind repeating it forever.  
  
As though he could hear her, an eye cracked open and Kite fixed her with a warm, beautiful smile too tired to be self-conscious. Then he closed his eyes once more. Nothing to fear from her, no need to watch.   
  
Mito sat down across from them and rested and everything in the world was perfect.  
  
***  
  
A few days later Kite came up behind her while she was digging onions out of the garden and told her he was leaving.  
  
“What?” she said stupidly. She twisted around to look up at him, impossibly tall, looming over her where she crouched in the dirt, a somber figure blocking out the sun.  
  
“I’m leaving,” he repeated. “Tomorrow.”  
  
She swallowed. “Why?”  
  
“Because it’s time. Because I want to.”  
  
Backlit by the sun’s brilliance, his face was an invisible patch of darkness and he might not have been human. Mito dusted off her hands and clambered unsteadily to her feet, and when her vision adjusted a little his face was studiously neutral, if not - and she _hoped_ not - slightly sympathetic.  
  
“So suddenly?” Mito asked desperately. “You’re still not better, surely a few more weeks-”  
  
“I’ve already decided,” he said in a voice that was steady but gentle. “I’m ready to go and I’m leaving.”  
  
There, the tone was unmistakably pitying and Mito couldn’t stand it. Fighting for control of her emotions, she stared at the ground - the partially excavated onion, the loose black dirt. “You’re not ready,” she said. “You can’t even sleep the night through. You’ve barely started to heal.”  
  
Kite let out a hollow laugh, not quite cruel but not warm. “And what, if I stay here longer and you sleep with me I’ll get better?”  
  
Her face burned. “Wh- I-”  
  
“No offense, Mito-san, but if you can make me get a full night’s undisturbed sleep I’ll marry you. I’m not good at sleeping; never have been.”  
  
Unwilling to commit herself to one interpretation of his words, she said, “Okay,” in a tiny voice. The soil around her onion was starting to dry and pale in the heat and light. One of her bootlaces was coming undone.  
  
“Okay?” Kite said gently.  
  
She nodded.  
  
“I just - I need to go,” he said. “I just need to go.”  
  
“Okay, Kite.”  
  
“I can’t stay here any longer.”  
  
“I understand.”  
  
She didn’t, really - the sudden desperation in his voice, like he was a trapped bird that had finally realized there was a sky out there, a storm, and would rather dash itself to pieces on the bars of its cage than rest a minute longer in safety; there might have been no reason behind it. But what reason was there behind anything? Especially - Kite had said that everything about him pointed back to Ging. That would make him good at chasing, and fleeing, and _no_ good at keeping his feet on the ground or in one location.  
  
Kite reached out and patted her shoulder absently - the only time he’d voluntarily touched her, rather than merely submitting to her touch - and nodded back. “Thank you,” he said, in that hoarse, low voice Mito suddenly realized she would have to miss. “I knew you’d understand.”  
  
Mito ignored the fact that it might be a lie. “Are you going to meet up with Ging?” she asked. Tried not to let the question sound bitter.  
  
Kite let out a surprised laugh. “No. No, I don’t have the energy to track him down. I wouldn’t be able to meet up with him if I wanted to.”  
  
Implying Kite couldn’t just get in contact with Ging and ask him. Mito tried not to frown and didn’t quite succeed. “Are you going to meet up with _anyone_? You can’t just strike out on your own after what you’ve been through-”  
  
“I appreciate your concern, Mito-san, really,” Kite said, “But frankly, you have no idea what I’ve been through before. I’ll be fine. Thanks to your ministrations I’m already in much better shape than I’ve been other times, when I had no one to help me recover. If anything I’ve stuck around here too long. Ging-san would slap me around for letting someone take care of me for so long. I’m going soft.” He smiled at her jokingly, as though expecting her to agree. The smile faltered a little when he saw the look on her face and he cleared his throat. “I’ll be fine, Mito-san,” he repeated, not making eye contact.  
  
She toyed with the fabric of her apron. “And you really have to leave on such short notice?”  
  
A nod. “I’ve got the itch,” he said. “Have to get going while the wind is fair. If I wait any longer I might end up sticking around forever.” A grin, like that was a bad thing. This time he either didn’t notice her unreceptive response, or he ignored it. The smile might have been the biggest Mito had seen him make, and it looked so sincere and charming that it could only be forced.

  
Mito wondered how much she actually knew Kite at all. How much of what she saw was recovery, and how much was just barely enough recovery to put a mask back in place. His moods were kaleidoscopic; he oscillated from vulnerable to charming to awkward - from serious to joking, from blunt to evasive - with a rapidity that was sometimes dizzying. And the fact that his vulnerability and awkwardness were sometimes somehow charming - in a glaze-eyed, waifish way - suggested that even _they_ might be play-acting. It was both worrying and infuriating, and it made her wish she had known him Before, in order to judge better. She wanted to write down a list of his mannerisms - the hair tuck, the hat, the avoidance of eye contact, the way he ate - so she could ask Ging, if she ever saw him again, which ones were old and which were new. She wanted to know how much Kite had lied. She wondered if he lied to Ging, too. She wondered what it would take to make him honest.  
  
“I won’t argue with you,” she said. “But I will miss you. And worry about you.”  
  
“No need,” he said heartily. “I’ll be gone tomorrow before dawn and you can forget I ever existed.”  
  
Her blood boiled. “That is _not_ what I want,” she snapped. “You’ll stay for breakfast at least, and Grandma and I will see you off properly. If you sneak off, you’re being a damn ungrateful guest.”  
  
Kite shrunk under her gaze, blinking. He let out a self-conscious laugh and brushed a strand of hair behind his ear. “Okay,” he said. “If you insist.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“Okay.” With another nod, he turned away and went back inside, and Mito’s only stupid thought as she watched him retreat was: would he have wanted to go if she hadn’t had spots of dirt on her knees? If she hadn’t been harsh and cross and sweaty? Would he have stayed if she had done something different?  
  
That night Kite didn’t have nightmares, or at least he didn’t make noise.  
  
The following morning Mito got up at the crack of dawn to start cooking (that was the reason, she insisted to herself as she angrily tied her apron on, and not to keep Kite from sneaking away). By the time she had put omelets on to fry, he came down the stairs, fully dressed, with a bag over his shoulder and a dark blue cloak Mito didn’t recognize draped over his arm. He looked tired in the way he always looked tired, like it didn’t bother him too much.  
  
“Good morning,” he said solemnly, placing the cloak and bag over the back of his usual chair. “Is there anything I can do to-”  
  
“Sit down and help yourself to some coffee,” she said brusquely. The pot and cream pitcher and sugar were already on the table.  
  
Mutely Kite complied, pouring himself a cup and leaving it black.  
  
Mito threw a buttered piece of toast onto his plate. It clattered against the porcelain. “Would you prefer strawberry jam or orange marmalade?” she asked.  
  
“Orange, please,” Kite said meekly.  
  
She wrenched one of the jars set before him on the table open and began spreading marmalade on his toast. Behind her the omelets began sizzling aggressively.  
  
“Ah, I can do that, Mito-san,” Kite said, indicating the toast.  
  
She finished spreading the marmalade and spun back to the stove without a word. Kite’s posture shifted like he was trying to draw into himself and turn invisible without anyone noticing his efforts, a difficult feat given his lanky limbs. He blinked in bewilderment as Mito whirled around the kitchen preparing food. He looked halfway between bemused and genuinely fearful as Mito heaped fried asparagus and rice onto his plate.  
  
“Do you want cheese with your omelet?” she snapped.  
  
He winced. He lowered the coffee cup, which he had been about to sip, back to the table with a gentle clink, barely audible above the sizzling on the stove. “Ah, I’m not sure I can eat an omelet in addition to all of this,” he said very politely. “I think-”  
  
The burning glare Mito turned on him was interrupted as Grandma came into the kitchen. “You’re really going all-out, Mito!” she said. “I haven’t seen you cook this much since Gon and Killua were here.”  
  
Mito did not miss Kite’s involuntary grimace, though it was not at all clear what he was grimacing at. “It’s not much. I wanted to give Kite a proper send-off,” she said, as though daring Grandma to challenge her.  
  
“Yeah?” Grandma said. “Send him off to where? The vomitorium? It looks like you’re trying to feed a whole army.”  
  
Kite turned red and hid his face behind his hands, like he couldn’t bear hearing someone argue on his behalf in such blunt terms, like anything other than obfuscation about his discomfort at the situation hurt his ears.  
  
Mito scowled. “It’s just a normal breakfast. He’s going to need energy for his trip.”  
  
“This breakfast would provide him with energy for the next six years,” Grandma said, sitting down in her own seat.  
  
Kite suddenly became deeply engrossed in his coffee, and started drinking it rapidly in long sips.  
  
Stomping over, Mito tilted her pan over Grandma’s plate and deposited some asparagus. “Well, he doesn’t have to eat it all!” Mito said. “I didn’t say he had to eat it all! Do you want cheese with your omelet?”  
  
“_Mito_,” Grandma said, and looked into her eyes with a look of deep sympathy. The abrupt shift away from their usual banter made Mito pause before Grandma spoke again. “Mito? Kite is _leaving_. Sit down and enjoy breakfast with us. Everything looks wonderful.”  
  
Fingers curling and uncurling in her apron, Mito tried to decide whether to go into a rage or subside. A selfish, quasi-logical part of her brain: Kite would hate it if you really yelled, and then he would feel better about leaving and it would be your fault. The more you self-efface, the nicer you are, the more justified you are in feeling bitter and lonely when he goes.  
  
She forced the voice down, following its advice nonetheless only because it would be better for Kite and not because it might torture him or vindicate her apparent deep-seated need to be a victim of the people she cared for when they refused her care.  
  
Letting out a long slow breath, she uncurled her fingers from her apron. There were wrinkles in the starched fabric from the tightness with which she had been clenching it.  
  
“Do you want cheese with your omelet, Kite?” she asked, normally.  
  
“Um.” He looked down self-consciously. “Either way. Thanks.”  
  
At least he knew he liked turtlenecks, Mito thought dully. And breakfast passed.  
  
It was late morning when Kite stood up, making his chair legs scrape on the floor (stood up for the second time, because Mito had refused to allow him to help clear the table. He sat there like an ornament until the dishes were clean and his bag had been laden with leftovers and the conversation ran out and Mito couldn’t think of any other good reason to delay his departure).  
  
“Thank you,” he said solemnly as he threw the cloak over his shoulders. “That was really delicious.”  
  
“My pleasure,” Mito murmured.  
  
Grandma stood up. Kite hefted his bag. They all gravitated towards the door and Kite unlatched it but did not step through. Grandma held out her hand to him. Obligingly (studiously natural, no sign of an aversion to touch) he took it, and Grandma enveloped the long white fingers in both of her own tiny, wrinkled hands. “Thank you for staying with us,” she said warmly. “You’re welcome here any time.”  
  
In response Kite gave a smile and a laugh, which Mito noted was hardly a reaction with one definitive meaning. Surprise at the invitation, and gratitude; shock and derision; an automatic stock-response, socially acceptable in almost any situation. No way to adjudicate between the three. Kite extracted his hand and turned to Mito.  
  
“I’ll walk you to the gate,” she offered. He nodded in return. In silence they made their way across the yard. Birdsong emanated from the forest. The sun beat upon the scene.  
  
Kite swung his bag down to rest by his feet and turned. “So. I guess this is goodbye,” he said.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Take care of Grandma.”  
  
“I will.”  
  
He nodded. There was an awkward pause as he looked at Mito’s shoulder, like he still hated eye contact.  
  
It didn’t mean anything, Mito thought to herself fiercely. Some people didn’t like eye contact. Maybe he never had. He was going to be fine. She was going to miss his taciturn presence, but he would be fine. She had done what she promised, and he was ready to leave - he said he didn’t need her, which is what she had been trying to achieve. It tasted like loneliness, like her other successes.  
  
“Kite... what do I say to Gon? He’ll be back.”  
  
Kite was silent for a long moment, hat brim hiding his eyes. Then, “Tell him - tell him it wasn’t his fault,” he said.  
  
But he didn’t want to see Gon. Mito smoothed her apron. “Is that true?” she asked, voice soft.  
  
“Yes,” Kite said harshly.  
  
She nodded.  
  
Kite sighed, all at once looking very tired. When he spoke, his tone was bitter but relenting. “He wasn’t uninvolved, but - no, it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t torture me. He didn’t - no.”  
  
“But you’re not leaving him a message to visit you.”  
  
“No,” Kite said. “I’m not.” A pause. “Maybe someday.”  
  
“I’ll tell him that.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
A swallow chirped somewhere nearby.  
  
Kite turned to her. “Mito-san, do you have anything you’d like me to say to Ging-san? If I ever see him.”  
  
She thought about that. Something she’d like to say to Ging - a few options flashed through her mind. There was a lot she wanted to say to Ging. But - she took a steadying breath. “No. Thank you.”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
Her eyes grew steely. “But if it comes up, you’re certainly welcome to let him know you offered to carry a message and I declined.”  
  
He let out a dry laugh. “Sure.”  
  
A thought struck Mito. “It’s unlikely, but if _I_ see him first is there anything you want me to tell him?”  
  
Kite grimaced. Apparently he hadn’t thought about that. “Could – just-” He bit his lip. “No, but - could you not tell him how long I stayed?”  
  
At that Mito nearly reconsidered her decision not to send Kite off with some choice words for his mentor. But she refrained. “Sure,” she said.  
  
A jerky nod. “Thanks.”  
  
More silence. “You have your lunch?” Mito asked. “Your-”  
  
“Yes. Thank you.”  
  
Stiffly Mito nodded again, trying to reassure herself. Kite was an adult, a Hunter. He would be fine. He had lived his whole life without her. Without anyone he could count on, really, it seemed. She knew she was going to worry about him anyway. Standing on tiptoe, Mito briskly smoothed a fold of his cloak. “Where will you go?”  
  
He shrugged. “The mainland. From there I’ll make my way to a bigger city and find someone who needs something done. I don’t have my license anymore, but I have skills. It won’t take me too long to make enough money to buy an air ticket.”  
  
“To where?”  
  
“Probably Ibersica,” he said after a second. “They were trying to breed Courtot frogs there. Maybe they’ll take me on.”  
  
She nodded. “And your friends?”  
  
“Once I’m back in the community they’ll probably hear of it eventually. They can come find me. If they want.”  
  
The tiny hesitation before the last sentence made Mito sad. It was like he thought that the people who cared about him would care less now that he needed them more.  
  
“Well,” he said, swinging his bag up onto his shoulder, “Thank you for everything, Mito-san.”  
  
She wondered if Kite was holding down a desire to cling to the present, too, or if his thoughts were already bent towards the changing tide and he was impatient for her to let him go. _Doesn’t matter_, she thought. Sometimes you have to let people depart whether or not you want to. One kind of person makes a home and stays there; the other kind leaves it. But sometimes they come back - sometimes they come back.  
  
Standing there ready to travel, Kite looked anything but fragile, yet she had seen too much of him in the wrong circumstances to think of him as anything but a frightened bird, the kind that could be killed all too easily by a summer storm or a soaring raptor or a stray shot into the bush. Kite insisted he wasn’t heading off into a bleak world of danger before he was ready, but the fear of it made her heart ache so hard she wanted it to stop beating. He seemed all too willing to thrust himself into the world without the certainty that he was capable of coping with it, despite his protestations to the contrary. He ignored it or laughed when the world cut him. As self-destructive as Gon, with none of the naïveté; a man who knew he didn’t like to be safe. It was the saddest thing she had ever seen and it made her want to hug him tight and kiss the top of his head and lead him inside. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t hugged Gon before he left again. She wished she hadn’t told Ging to stay away. She wished she could become brave enough not to hate her lot. She wished Kite could become brave enough not to fear comfort.  
  
Too many emotions. Only one thing to say.  
  
“Kite?” she said fiercely. “Forget your sewer. You’ll always have a home on Whale Island.”  
  
With an odd little half-smile, “Maybe I’ll come back some day,” he said, already turning away, tugging his hat lower on his head.   
  
“You’d better.” Her voice was sticking in her throat.  
  
He raised a hand in silent acknowledgement without turning around, and she watched his back recede into the dust of the path.  
  
She went inside and brewed coffee. By the time the ship would have left, she was working on the laundry she had postponed from the day before.  
  
***  
  
A few months later Mito received a letter in the mail - or, rather, a check for a significant amount of money and an itemized list, and _no_ letter. The list was written out in precise handwriting, and comprised a set of items with estimated costs. Room and board; 3 sets homemade clothes; hat; medication; bag; mattress; so on. He had even included a sum for ‘mental distress - 3 psychologist visits,’ as though psychological distress were quantifiable, as though this whole exercise weren’t an insult.  
  
Mito stared at the list with a pit in her stomach, turned the envelope inside-out to be sure there was no message. No message; just the check and the breakdown of the sum. The message didn’t need to be written - it was implicit. _I don’t owe you any more. I’m not coming back_.  
  
She tore the check into pieces. She would have preferred to send it back to him with a strongly-worded letter. But, well.  
  
There was no return address.

**Author's Note:**

> Your feedback fuels me. Tell me your favourite line!


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